


but here, alive

by iron_spider



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24442201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: People are wearing stickers that sayI AM IRON MAN.It’s weird. It’s weird, to see his face everywhere here, especially today. Peter has to pass by the mural in the drama hallway on the daily, but today is like. Outrageous. Really, really weird.He’s got a couple of the stickers stuffed in his pocket, though. And one of the keychains Betty made. She was selling them for a dollar each, but she gave it to him for free.Morita keeps talking but Peter finds his way inside his own head, and closes his eyes.
Relationships: Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 77
Kudos: 601





	but here, alive

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Tony Stark, my favorite character of all time <3

“And on this May 29th,” Principal Morita says, his voice echoing across the gym, “Tony Stark’s birthday, the first birthday after his untimely passing, we’re going to turn the day into a celebration. We won’t be sad, because that’s not what he would want us to be, especially after he gave his life to make sure we all still had a world to live in—”

Peter sighs, his head pounding. He tries to tune the speech out, because every single person from the front office has gotten on their soapbox today to remind them about Tony’s birthday. They’ve got interactive booths in the cafeteria. Art competitions. The AV Club is hosting a Stark Hour, airing out a bunch of his old interviews and fight footage. 

People are wearing stickers that say _I AM IRON MAN._

It’s weird. It’s weird, to see his face everywhere here, especially today. Peter has to pass by the mural in the drama hallway on the daily, but today is like. Outrageous. Really, really weird. 

He’s got a couple of the stickers stuffed in his pocket, though. And one of the keychains Betty made. She was selling them for a dollar each, but she gave it to him for free. 

Morita keeps talking but Peter finds his way inside his own head, and closes his eyes. 

_The school day is almost over. Two more hours. That’s it. That’s it. He can make more web fluid in Carter’s class. He can skip lunch and eat outside. Then he’s got the rest of the day. Happy will come get him. And then he’ll be able to deal with this shit._

“Hey,” Ned says, nudging into him. “Wanna skip lunch and go sit on the court?”

Peter smiles at him. “You read my mind.”

~

May went all out today. He has a roast beef pita cut into an actual heart shape, with Doritos and a container of potato salad. Ned’s knee knocks into Peter’s as he stares down at his lunchbox, the two of them sitting on the stairs on the west side of campus.

“Where did you get that ice pack?” Ned asks. 

Peter taps it with his thumb. It’s a BB-8 ice pack, something else May bought him to try and keep his spirits up. “May got it,” Peter says. “Specifically for today. The C3PO one wasn’t really freezing right anymore and I almost poisoned myself the other day when I ate the turkey that had been sitting in my bag since the night before. But I guess they don’t stay cold for that long anyway.”

Ned winces. “Ugh. I remember that.”

“Puking. All night.”

“BB-8 will serve you well,” Ned says. “He’s like—he knows what he’s doing. 3PO is always questioning and being annoying and like, yeah. BB-8 all the way.”

“Maybe I’ll find you an R2 one so we can match,” Peter says. He looks at Ned’s lunch box. “Give old Mr. Freez Pack a break.”

“Yeah,” Ned says, picking it up and turning it over in his hand. “He’s been through the ringer.”

Peter nods, and takes another bite of his sandwich. He’s anxious in his blood, his knee jumping with it. His head hurts so bad and he tries to will it away.

“I’m sorry that everything is so stupid today,” Ned says, the trees rustling behind him. “Or like, dramatic. I don’t know. But wasn’t Tony dramatic? Maybe he would have liked it? Or he wouldn’t have liked it because it bothers you.”

Peter doesn’t know if it bothers him. He doesn’t know if that’s the right word. It makes him anxious. It makes him want to get the hell out of here. It’s a version of the world that’s wrong, that’s incorrect, that’s misinformed, and he burns up with it. 

“It’s okay,” he says, knowing he’s usually a chatterbox and Ned isn’t gonna know how to fix this. It makes him feel bad, but he can’t find the right words. He doesn’t even know if they exist.

Peter’s public emotions are a pantomime. Everyone knows different layers of his situation, and nobody at school knows it in full. Not even Ned. He’s half of himself. He’s lies and deceit and anxiety and weird, orchestrated sadness. The sadness is still sadness even though it’s orchestrated, and it eats at him and drags him into a stormy void place where he’s alone. Misunderstanding. 

He’s two people. No, he’s three. He’s three now. Himself, Spider-Man, and the Peter who Knows.

He wants to go home. 

He wants to _go._

He wants to be in the one place where all three Peters smash together into one Peter who isn’t hiding anything. 

“Did you see the poster Ariel Hayes did?” Ned asks. “It’s in the Chemistry hallway. Of Iron Man and Spider-Man in this like, massive water battle. It’s really, uh. It’s really cool.”

Peter smiles a bit to himself. “Yeah,” he says, weirdly forlorn on a day where it’s absolutely normal to be forlorn. “I saw it.”

~

“How you doing, kid?” Happy asks, once they start driving.

“I have a stupid headache,” Peter groans.

“Ah, shit. We’ll grab some painkillers on the way,” Happy says. “Was it super weird?”

“Everybody acts like they were his best friend,” Peter says, sliding down in the passenger seat. “That’s what. Makes it weird.” He clears his throat, and rubs at his temples, trying to soothe the pounding. “And like, the other thing.” He knows he can’t talk about it in the car, even though they aren’t sure yet if it matters.

Happy still shifts uncomfortably, and Peter can’t help but laugh.

“Don’t _laugh_ at me, Peter.”

“Ever the security guard.”

“Just—hush.”

Peter smiles a little bit. He can feel the world opening up in front of him as Happy drives, the three Peters converging. His head hurts and he wonders if there’s a time in his life where things will be different. He knows normal isn’t an option for him, because he hasn’t had a taste of normal since that day at Oscorp. But this is like—too much, even for him. Somebody with experience with something like this. 

He feels selfish, thinking that way. It’s not his place.

“Did you get to see your girlfriend today?” Happy asks, knocking him in the arm.

Peter glares at him. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Not yet.”

“Stop.”

“I’ve seen that heart eyes look,” Happy says. “I am familiar with that look.”

Peter slumps lower into the chair, and the seatbelt cuts across his neck. “I’m getting to know her better,” he says. MJ is a mystery that barely fits into his life right now, with everything else going on. But she blipped too, and she’s—easier to talk to, after all that. Shared trauma. And she’s really pretty. And he wonders why she was absent today. But with everything else, and the way his head has plagued him all day, he wasn’t really able to focus on it.

“Good,” Happy says, genuinely. “You need a bit of normal.”

Peter scoffs. “I was just thinking about that word,” he says. “I have no idea what that word means.”

“Go back to English class, short stuff.”

“You’re the worst,” Peter says, closing his eyes. “I’m falling asleep on you. We’ve got forty minutes.”

“Not with this traffic. At least an hour.”

Peter wants to say even better, because his head hurts bad, and he’s tired and the kind of exhausted he shouldn’t know at his age.

But he wants to get to where they’re going.

Happy pats him on the shoulder, and Peter sucks in a big breath.

~

“Okay, are we good?” Peter asks, when they’re down at the edge of the driveway, a foot or so from the car.

“Yeah,” Happy says. “I doubt anybody is listening but we can never be too careful.”

Peter blows out a breath. He’s in that space now, where anything can be said, where he is all that he is, all that he knows, because they all know too. Like a red and blue Venn diagram with a spider logo. “Sometimes being fake sad makes me real sad,” he says. “Like it—transports me to this weird headspace and I feel like it’s all real and like—I don’t know, I mess myself up. Like I’m sad for all of these people and I can’t find myself back to the real—me, I guess?”

The woodchips crunch under their feet as they walk up to the door of the cabin. “I’m sorry,” Happy says. “I get like that sometimes too.”

“Is it gonna be like this on every one of his birthdays?” Peter asks. “The death day?” He doesn’t even like saying it.

“No,” Happy says, as they reach the door. “I don’t even know if they’re gonna play it off for that long. Well, we’ll see. I’ve got no idea.”

“I just wish I could tell Ned,” Peter says, as Happy slips the key into the lock.

“No way,” Happy says. “That kid would tell everybody.”

“He would _not—”_

They step inside and Peter immediately hears Tony’s voice.

“He would not what?” Tony asks, from somewhere in the living room. “Who’s he? What would he not?”

Peter lets out a breath that felt like it was expanding in his chest, threatening to bust through his ribcage. He drops his backpack at the door. The outside world fades away, all the things the public believes after that fateful day when the broken world came back together again. When Tony snapped and they dragged him off the battlefield that used to be the compound courtyard. 

When Helen and Carol Danvers made a miracle happen.

When the people in this cabin decided that maybe Tony deserved for the world to leave him alone, for once.

_If we go with the recovering route, they’d be up here every day looking for a glimpse of me. Trying to see if I’m using a walker or some shit. Watching for me to fall into the lake._

Peter remembers everyone talking over each other. Remembers the air tasting stale when they finally made the decision. They talked about some ways out, explanations that would play to the press and medical professionals alike. 

But then Pepper made the public statement. And Tony’s been dead ever since.

Dead, on paper. Dead, to the world. 

But here, alive, and laying on the couch this time instead of stuck in bed. Wearing sweats and a Hello Kitty t-shirt. He’s moving easier since Peter saw him on Thursday, and he sits up, beaming at him. 

“There’s my favorite teenager,” Tony says. He can’t quite get up on his own yet but he looks like he wants to, so Peter rushes over so he doesn’t have to falter for too long. He helps him stand and pulls him into a hug, closing his eyes and burying his face in his shoulder. 

Peter takes a big breath.

“Whoa, whoa,” Tony says, holding him tighter. “Was today harder than you thought it would be?” he asks. “Jesus, are they making a spectacle?”

“A little bit,” Peter says, understating the posterboards and the art projects and the merchandise and the goddamn happy birthday song during third period.

“Sorry, bud,” Tony says, rubbing his back. “I know it sucks. Morgan accidentally turned on the news earlier and got a whole bunch of bullshit she didn’t wanna hear. People crying, memorials, Jesus. Didn’t really think they’d carry on like this.”

Peter pulls back and looks at him. The scarring on his face doesn’t look as pulsing and awful as it did, in the beginning. Peter’s almost used to it now.

“Oh, please,” Rhodey says, from the kitchen. Peter looks up and sees him and Pepper in there, both cooking. “You love it. Everybody praising you.”

Tony tilts his head, raising an eyebrow. “I like the nice part,” he says, glancing over at him. “Not the sad and dramatic part.”

“Happy Birthday,” Peter says, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“Thanks, webs,” Tony says. Peter helps him sit again and he sits next to him, both of them leaning back. Happy walks across, winking at Tony and joining the other two in the kitchen.

“Where’s Morgan now?” Peter asks.

“Napping,” Tony says. “She’ll be awake for dinner.” He looks at him. “May coming?”

“After her shift, yeah,” Peter says, smiling. He feels like there’s a great weight off his chest, here. The only place where he can really talk about it. The only place where Tony is alive, still. 

Tony stares at him for a moment, eyes regarding him. “I know this is kind of shitty, sometimes,” he says. 

“It’s the first time in your life the press have left you alone,” Peter says, leaning closer, so their shoulders bump. “I get it.”

“But I don’t want it to stress you out,” Tony says. “Unnecessarily. Just pretend you hated me, you know? Just tell everyone I was the worst boss ever and you’re glad I’m dead.”

“Shut up,” Peter snorts. “Dumb.”

Tony grins. “Maybe like. In six months or so, we’ll go with the Kree healing pod story. Or the SHIELD coma. They’re gonna be pissed but whatever.”

“Don’t do it on account of me or anybody else,” Peter says, listening to them laugh and clang around in the kitchen. “Only when you want to.”

“I like a lowkey birthday,” Tony says. “With the six people in the world that know I’m still alive.”

Peter is still, like. Flabbergasted that he was counted among the people that got to know this secret. He should be honored, instead of struggling. 

“You sure you’re alright?” Tony asks. “You got that faraway look. Be honest. I’ll know.”

“It’s just strange, sometimes,” Peter says, staring off straight ahead. “Like, everyone is so convinced, obviously, like, of course. And I know what’s real, where you are, that you’re not—dead, but, uh—they’re _so_ convinced. And it’s...it gets inside my head sometimes and I question myself. Question what I really know.”

“Hey,” Tony says, and Peter looks at him again. “This is real, okay? I’m alive, I made it, and you know it. Just...doing a little bit of hiding. Just a little bit of resting.”

“You deserve it,” Peter says. 

Tony reaches up with his good hand and ruffles Peter’s hair. “One of these days we’ll get you one of those tiny ear coms and we’ll carry on a conversation through the whole school day.”

Peter laughs. “Uh, yeah, I’d love that.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the _I AM IRON MAN_ sticker, peeling it off and putting it on Tony’s shirt. “I thought that would be appropriate,” he says.

“Oh yeah,” Tony says, looking down at it. “Yeah, spot on.”

“I got you that firework drone,” Peter says, getting weirdly emotional. “It’s in my backpack.”

“Just revealing presents now,” Tony says, grinning at him. “Looney Toon, thank you. But what did I say? You guys are my presents. Your _presence_ is my presents.”

Peter just stares at him and reminds himself to get his head on straight. No matter what the outside world knows, he knows better. He knows the truth. 

Tony is alive. At peace and left alone, for fucking once. 

“Happy Birthday,” Peter says, grinning. “Again.”

Tony smiles back. “Thanks, Pete,” he says. “Wanna help me do the old man laps? Walk around the cabin like I’m eighty-five instead of fifty-three?”

Peter nods and stands again, taking Tony’s arms and helping him up. “Duh,” he says. “That’s my favorite.”

“So nice of you to humor me.”

Peter holds onto him once he’s standing too, keeps him steady, and he knows one day Tony will get past all this, regain his strength again. And then he’ll be alive for everyone to see, and maybe they’ll finally give him the kind of space he had to pretend to die to achieve. Maybe then. Hopefully then. 

“Let’s go old man,” Peter says, as they veer into the hallway, away from the kitchen. “Pick up the pace.”

“Jesus, the sass,” Tony says. “Gimme a break, Spidey.”

Peter grins. Finally, he realizes, his headache is gone.


End file.
